Moving Students From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-ABLE: Michael Wesch at TEDxKC

Today a new medium of communication emerges every time somebody creates a new web application. Yet these developments are not without disruption and peril. Familiar long-standing institutions, organizations and traditions disappear or transform beyond recognition. And while new media bring with them new possibilities for openness, transparency, engagement and participation, they also bring new possibilities for surveillance, manipulation, distraction and control. Critical thinking, the old mainstay of higher education, is no longer enough to prepare our youth for this world. We must create learning environments that inspire a way of being-in-the-world in which they can harness and leverage this new media environment as well as recognize and actively examine, question and even re-create the (increasingly digital) structures that shape our world.

As we prepare to return to our classrooms in upcoming weeks in the United States, let’s consider ways we’re going to help our students MOVE in their learning to become more “knowledge-ABLE” citizens. Michael challenges us to move beyond critical thinking, to help our students learn to utilize and leverage media tools to not simply consume and pass tests, but to engage with the challenges and problems of our world which need their attention, energy and creativity. I’m thinking of ways my students are going to “map media” to our curriculum as content producers, as well as projects we can engage in together in our STEM / Maker classroom.